Phone data bought online with just Rs 2,500 was used to defraud hundreds of people in a multi-crore loan scam running from a fake call centre in Noida, police said. Eleven people, including nine women, were arrested for selling fake insurance policies and loans.
The call centre, run by two former life insurance policy agents, operated from the fourth floor of a building in Noida’s Sector 51 market for over a year. Police said the gang lured people from outside Delhi-NCR by promising high returns on loans and insurance policies.
The scam’s masterminds, Ashish and Jitendra, hired nine women to act as call centre executives who would call people and sell them these policies. The gang bought SIM cards through fake Aadhaar cards bought illegally.
These SIM cards were used to hide their identities while targeting unsuspecting victims. The organisation functioned based on commission — the more people you lure in, the more money you get.
The money from the victims of the scam was received in a Punjab National Bank account that was rented for Rs 10,00 a month from a man named Arvind in Karnataka. Both Ashish and Jitendra would then use debit cards to withdraw the money in Noida.
After a police raid, a black diary used by Ashish was found. The diary detailed every financial transaction in the year-long scam which generated crores of rupees.
The was busted on Friday in a joint operation by the Crime Response Team (CRT) and the local Sector 49 police station officials, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Shakti Mohan Avasthy said.
A case for a similar scam was filed against then in Ranchi, he added.
“Ashish and Jitendra started this fraudulent activity after working for SBI Life Insurance in 2019. They bought data of about 10,000 people from India Mart for Rs 2,500 and began calling people across India, defrauding them under the pretence of offering loans and insurance,” he added
The police identified those arrested as key accused Ashish Kumar alias Amit and Jitendra Verma alias Abhishek. The nine women arrested are Nisha alias Sneha, Reju alias Divya, Lovely Yadav alias Sweta, Poonam alias Pooja, Aarti Kumari alias Ananya, Kajal Kumari alias Surti, Sarita alias Suman, Babita Patel alias Mahi, and Garima Chauhan alias Sonia.
An First Information Report (FIR) has been filed in the case under provisions of the newly-enacted Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and all the accused have been sent to judicial custody.
